Ship



J. W. RUS SELL.

SHIP.

APPLICATlON FILED MAY 31. 19l8.

Patented May 10, 1921.

James VIZ Russell;

T0 all whom it may concern:

UNITED STA'E' TE OFFEQE.

JAMES W. RUSSELL, OF SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA,

SHIP.

Be it known that I, JAMES W. RUSSELIi, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of San Diego, in the county of San Diego and State of California, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Ships,

of which the following is a full, clear, and exact specification.

All kinds of ships have been sunk from collisions, and in times of war have been sunk from shell fire and torpedoes; and sadly numerous as the latter have been, the continuous loss from collisions in times of peace as well as of war, with other craft or with icebergs, as well as from striking rocks and reefs, is startlingly great.

The object of this invention is the construction of a safety ship, a ship substantially unsinkable, practical in design, adapted for either passengers, freight or other uses, and which shall possess the following advantageous features: First, a large measuse of protection against collision, shell fire,

torpedoes and the like; which provides for reserve buoyancy, diminishes the vessels tendency to rolling and plunging, gives provessel, primarily designed for freight transortation, embodying my improvements. ig. 2 is a plan view of the same in diagram, upon a smaller scale and with the central portion of the vessel omitted.

, T hereference characterl designates a ship having my improvements applied thereto. Uponeach side of the ship, preferably ex tending from same-0 stern and from the water line to the level of the main deck, is formed a structure 2 reaching outward for several feet and diminishing in height as its distance from the side of the vessel increases I prefer to have both its top 3 and bottom & inclined, and to have the outer wall 5 only a few feet or inches in height.

This structure 2, which coversor replaces" wholly or in part, the vertical freeboard 6 of the ship, I prefer to calla chambered bufferpand to have the same both water tight and practically air-tight. Midway be Specification of Letters Patent. Patented May 10 1921 Application filed May 31, 1918. Serial No. 237,628.

tween the top 3 and bottom 1 of each chambered buffer is an intermediate floor 7, preferably on the same level with or an extension of the deck 9 of the ship. Upon this floor may be located the vessels, life boats 10 and l1f e rafts 11, the top 3 being formed with suitable hatchways 12 adapted to be normally closed water-tight, but to be easily and quickly opened for the removal of the boats and rafts. c

Forhandling the life boats and life rafts,

and for lowering them to the water beyond the buffers 2 and the shields 13 which I design to locate several feet farther out from the buffers, I provide the ship with a number of booms 14, the ropes 15 of which can be attached to the boats and raftsfor hoisting them singly from their resting places and depositing them safely in the water. For this purpose, each boom should be 1 longer than the distance from the foot of its mast 17 to a point three or four feet outside the shields 13.

Should, now, a steamship crash against the ship 1, the chambered buffer 2 will give sufficient resistance to the steamship to prevent its cutting into the body of the ship tion, Were the under surfaceor bottom 4 of the chambered buffers made to be horizontal, the blow of the-same upon the surface of'the water as the vessel rolls would be quite severe, but by having it inclined up- 'ward from .a point near the waterline of the vessel, this lowermost section of the surface 1 descends into the water firstand then point after point until much of the surface issubmerged, all without shock or disturbance," except under unusual conditions of wind and wave.

For protection against torpedoes and the like, a series of floating shields 13 are provided, which are made'sufficiently buoyant and loaded at their lower edges to float ver tically with their upper edges nearly on the same level as the outer extremity of the bottom 1, or otherwise somewhat above the water line. Each shield 13 is connected by two or more arms 19, pivoted at their ends to the shield and to the outer extremity of the buffer so that it can rise and fall to a limited extent independently of the vessel. The

. length of these arms added to the reach of the chambered buffers gives a distance of the shields from the sides of the ship which will insure against material injury to the latter arising from the explosion of a torpedo or of a drifting mine against one of the shields.

These pivoted arms serve not only to hold the shields at the required distance from the ship, and permit free vertical movement thereof, but give them play independently of each other to meet the requirements of wave motion, the effect of which upon the ship and shield will not always be concurrent, nor of one shield to its neighbors.

The shields are preferably disposed end to end for substantially the entire length of the ship, being stepped at the bow and steam to remain at the desired distance therefromwvhile held parallel with the line of progress of the ship in order to cut freely through the water.

The shields may be used only when the ship is passing through a danger Zone, and to that end they are detachable so that they can be taken up by a boom 1 1 and swung over into suitable pockets 20 provided for them in the ship. These pockets are preferably formed beside the vertical bulkheads 21 by which the ship is divided into three sets of longitudinally extending water-tight compartments; the sets of compartments 22 being between the ships sides and the bulkheads 21, and the set 23 being between the bulkheads 21.

Hence, should a torpedo or a floating mine explode in contact with the sides of the ship because the shields 13 had been removed from the water and deposited in the pockets 20, the shields would protect the bulkheads from the explosion and limit the 1 destructive effect of the same.

Further, by having the compartments 22 comparatively small, any water entering a torpedoed side of the ship is restricted in volume to such small compartments and is consequently insufficient to sink the ship,

a supporting and steadying surface which will greatly reduce both the roll and the plunge of the ship, so that I am led to be lieve that it will be found next to impossible for my improved ship to founder or capsize.

Further, should a shell, torpedo or mine penetrate the vessel below the water line, the reserve buoyancy of the chambered buffers 2 will amply compensate for that lost by the flooding of one or more compartments of the ship and such reserve buoyancy becomes operatively effective automatically with the settling of the ship.

In case of a collision with another vessel, or with an iceberg, the buffer 2 will offer suflicient resistance to insure against dangerous injury to the main sides of the ship;

but in case water did enter a compartment,

the ship remains safe, for the reason of the reserve buoyancy of the chambered buffers as already recited.

The flat vertical sides of ships as now built form excellent targets for enemy guns; the direct impact of a shell a ainst the flat surface being far more effective than the glancing hit against the sloping top 3 of the buffers 2. Even should a shell pierce a buffer 2, it in all probability would not also pierce a vital part of the ship. 7

In order to protect a ship from a torpedo, it is best to intercept and explode the latter at a substantial distance from the ship. To accomplish this by long arms reaching out from the sides of the vessel is not found to be satisfactory, butby the employment of comparatively short arms carried outward to the total distance necessary for safety by means of the chambered buffers, the objections are overcome, and the shields are suitably spaced from the ships hull in a manner to be eminently practical even in foul weather.

Shell fire that falls short and might otherwise strike the ship below the water line, will in the great majority of cases meet one of. the shields 13 and be either intercepted or its destructive force greatly reduced.

These chambered buffers may be readily attached to some ships now in use or under construction, as well as those planned therefor in the beginning.

Some vessels have been provided with water-tight bulkheads inadequate in number if not faulty in design or arrangement. I

have endeavored to overcome such defects by dividing my ship into several water-tight compartments located next to the wall of the ship, as at 21, extending from the bottom of the ship up to its deck 8 well above the water line. This deck 8 should also be watertight, as also that section 25 of each deck between these main longitudinal bulkheads 21 and the outer shell or skin of the ship. The deck 26 located nearest the bottom of the hull, should be water-tight in its entirety; and between this deck and the bottom of the hull is located a bulkhead 27 on the center longitudinal line of the ship.

By this system of water-tight compartments, when the outer shell or skin of the ship is pierced, the incoming water is restricted to the outer areas of the ship, thus saving a large space in the center of the ship that will be comparatively safe and free from water, even should other of the compartments become flooded.

Naturally, this system of compartments may have to be modified somewhat in the section of the vessel occupied by the boilers and engines.

Cross bulkheads 28 should, of course, be used, depending in number upon the length of the ship, as indicated in Fig. 2. Likewise, each hollow buffer 2 is divided by transverse bulkheads 30 into sufiicient compartments to insure against more than a short section thereof being flooded in case of a collision.

What I claim is:

1. A ship having three decks, in combination with a water-tight buffer for each side thereof located entirely above the normal water-line of the ship, theunder side of each buffer being substantially flat. and inclined upward toward its outer limits, the upper surface of each buffer being substantially flat and inclined downward toward its outer limits, each bufier having a horizontal floor intermediate of its top and bottom in line with a deck of the ship, and the top and bottom of each buffer being attached to the ship'at the levels of other decks.

2. A ship in combination with a watertight bufier for each side thereof located above the normal water-line thereof, each buffer comprising a top and bottom each oblique to the horizon'and approaching each other at their outer limits, and a low substantially vertical wall uniting the outer limits of the top and bottom of each buffer.

3. A ship in combination with a bufiier for each side thereof projecting for a considerable distance from the ships sides, arms pivoted to the outer extremities of each buifer and pockets for said shields located on the side of each bulkhead next to the adjacent side of the ship, whereby the stored shields protect the bulkheads from penetration and injury by torpedoes.

In testimony that I claim the foregoing invention, I have hereunto set my hand this 27th day of May, 1918.

JAMES w. RUSSELL. 

